Partnership for Kentucky Schools Turn Up the Volume: The Students Speak Toolkit
Students Speak Toolkit  >  II. The Focus Group Blueprint  >  C. Analyze and Report  >  2. Produce a record of the focus groups and draft notes.  >  Transcript Excerpt - High School Female Students

Note:

  • Each speaker, when possible to distinguish individual voices from the audiotapes, has been assigned a number indicated at the left of the page. Indistinguishable speakers are indicated by an underline and a colon. { __: }

  • The facilitator is indicated by an { F: } at the left of the page.

  • These excerpts have been pulled from the middle of the focus group conversation.

Transcript Excerpt - High School Female Students

F: All right. We'll go to the next question. Imagine that ten years from now you are all teachers at (SCHOOL NAME DELETED). (LAUGHTER) All right. You love your school and you want to do a great job for the students. What will your teaching be like?
7: I would make it so hard that only two or three would ever pass me. I would try my best to be like Miss (NAME DELETED).
12: I would make it hard, and I would make sure the children learned.
8: Yeah, Miss (NAME DELETED). She was kind of...she made...she made it interesting.
__: It was like...
12: I wouldn't make it so hard that they couldn't learn it, just make it hard, Here it is, you can do it.
__: Like zoology.
12: Right. Just explain it to them, and if I know that they know it, then if they don't pass it, then fail them. But if they don't know it and if the child doesn't know it and it's not their fault, then try to teach them and try to sit down with them and help them learn it, because if they don't know it what are they going to do? It's the teacher's job to do that, not make a class hard but make sure the children learn.
F: Okay. (NAME DELETED).
10: I don't know. I would try to make it fun for them. I wouldn't let them do whatever they wanted to do, but I would teach and I would try to make the learning fun for them so that they would want to learn and so they would want to be in school, because most people, I know right now I hate school. I hate school so bad, and I wouldn't want that for...for the students in my class. I would want them to like school and be there, want to learn and stuff.
F: Okay. (NAME DELETED).
9: I'd make them get in there and I wouldn't be really hard on them.
F: (NAME DELETED).
8: I would want to get my students interested. I...I don't want to be so hard and stuff to where I get up there and they just get bored to death and don't want to listen any more. I would want to be interesting so they would want to be there and want to learn and they don't dread coming to class or anything, but yet they still learn something.
F: (NAME DELETED).
7: I would have to be different. I would want to make it a little bit hard so they would take their books home and actually study. (INAUDIBLE) be a lot of classes like that. Miss (NAME DELETED), I never took a book home because she taught it so well. And I would...I'd like to go beyond that.
F: Okay. (NAME DELETED).
6: Umm... I'd just make it interesting because it would be easier for the students to learn that way, because they would want to learn it and...enjoy learning.
F: (NAME DELETED).
5: I would find some way to get them involved, like a hands-on project, because I find that if I'm actually dealing with something I'll learn it better, and I don't think if you take home a book and you do questions you're going to get anything out of that. You're going to remember an experience you had personally.
F: (NAME DELETED).
4: I would teach it so that I thought that they could catch on, but I would be nice enough to them to let them know if they ever needed me, like to help them extra or just needed me for anything, that I would be there for them.
F: (NAME DELETED).
3: I'd try to make it understandable because most of what teachers talk about is gibberish, you don't understand the first clue, and they take it for granted that you already know things that you really don't know.
F: Okay. (NAME DELETED).
1: I would involve more one-on-one activities and stuff, like (NAME DELETED) said, get them involved, and then tell them to come with me, come to me if they needed help and just try to teach it to the best of my ability, and try to help them any way that I could.

Partnership for Kentucky Schools Turn Up the Volume: The Students Speak Toolkit